


Charlie and the Dragon Nouns

by moonfairy13



Series: Hermione's Writing Workshops [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Breaking the Fourth Wall, F/M, Family, Fred Weasley Lives, Good Weasley Family (Harry Potter), Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 01:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20399728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonfairy13/pseuds/moonfairy13
Summary: Hot on the heels of Hermione's last effort to help a non-English fanfiction writer, she returns to The Burrow with an urgent plea from Flower, for help in understanding the capitalisation of English nouns, especially as they relate to dragons...





	Charlie and the Dragon Nouns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flower (Dreamystranger)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamystranger/gifts).

> It turns out that swear and slang words aren't the only thing that our non-English writing friends need a bit of extra help with. After answering this question for Flower privately, I'm again sharing this fic in case it helps anyone else. This one is especially for German friends :-)

“Hello, is anyone home?” Hermione called out as she walked through the kitchen door of The Burrow.

The first response to her question was a small explosion from two floors above, and then Molly Weasley came out of the pantry, groaning.

“Those boys!” she declared. “I thought they had moved out, to the flat above the shop! But no, here they are back again whenever they feel like it, making noise in their bedroom day and night!” Hermione laughed, knowing that Molly loved that her grown-up children came home so often. Then Molly’s voice softened. “Hello dear,” she said, giving Hermione a hug and kiss. “How can I help you?”

Before Hermione could answer, two loud and almost simultaneous cracks made the older witch cover her ears. As soon as Fred and George appeared, their mother immediately began to scold them for apparating inside the house – again – and only ceased when she saw Fred quickly covering the ground between himself and Hermione and leaning down to give her a gentle kiss on the lips.

“When did that happen?” Molly asked George, in a quieter voice than usual.

“Last night,” he replied. “After we helped with fairylight’s slang and swearing question, he took her to Hogsmeade on a date. Seems it went well,” George winked at his mother.

“Mmmmm, I’d say,” said Molly, smiling indulgently as she watched Hermione and Fred entwining themselves together, gazing into each other’s eyes. But her enjoyment of the idea that Hermione might one day become a Weasley was put on pause when the door opened again, this time to reveal a shorter, stockier redhead.

“Charlie!” she exclaimed, before turning around to remove some biscuits from the oven and tip them onto a cooling rack. “Here you are,” she told the four of them. “They’re chocolate chip, so leave some for Harry; they’re his favourite.” 

Turning away from the table, Molly shook her head. She waved her wand to waft the aroma of the freshly-based treats up the stairs in the hope that it would encourage Ron and Harry to get out of bed. The chances that any of those biscuits would still be available in five minutes were slim. Luckily, she had hidden the first batch so that the others would be able to have some when they appeared. 

“So to what do we owe this early pleasure then, Hermione?” George asked. Then a sly grin crossed his face. “Or could you not wait to get your hands back on my other half?”

Hermione smiled enigmatically, refusing to allow George to wind her up on a day like this. She had spent a lovely evening with Fred, who had finally managed to convince her that the attraction he had long and loudly proclaimed for her was genuine. Once she had decided to throw caution to the wind and believe him, things had progressed quickly. Their romantic picnic had turned into a romantic kissing session on a blanket, under the stars and a warming charm, and then they had gone back to his flat. Delighted to find a note from George to say that he was sleeping at The Burrow and expected this favour to be returned in the shape of a couple of nice dinners (for Fred was by far the better cook), they had snuggled themselves up on the sofa before retiring to Fred’s bed.

It was clear from the look on George’s face that, when Fred had soundlessly apparated into their shared childhood bedroom early that morning, making it appear that they had both slept at home so that Molly wouldn’t have any cause to judge Hermione, he hadn’t told his twin any details of the night they had spent together. George was clearly assuming that they had got up to all sorts. In truth, Hermione and Fred had been so overwhelmed by the strength of what they now realised they both felt for each other that they had simply laid on Fred’s bed together, holding hands and talking late into the night. Eventually, they had curled up and slept for a few hours; their fingers entwined and their heartbeats synchronised. 

“Well,” she said. “Fairylight’s sorted, and now my friend Flower has a question. And I thought I knew the answer, but I’m not sure…” She held up a piece of paper onto which she had printed the personal message from her friend.

“Well sit down and tell us then, love,” Fred said, deciding that they needed to be in armchairs this time so that he could hold Hermione in his lap. George and Charlie followed them into The Burrow’s cosy sitting room and, moments later, Ron and Harry appeared, stopping by the biscuit plate on their way to listen.

“You know that Flower is German?” she asked, and a couple of them nodded. “And did you know that, in German, all nouns are given capital letters?” She didn’t stop to see if anyone was following along, knowing that they had all been home educated until they went to Hogwarts and that Molly and Arthur had almost certainly not included modern muggle languages on the curriculum. 

“Bloody hell,” said George. “You’d have to concentrate hard when you were typing, wouldn’t you?” Hermione had been teaching him to use her laptop, explaining that they might be able to make certain parts of running their business easier by incorporating a bit of muggle technology here and there. As quick as his brain was, however, George could only peck at the keyboard, one finger at a time. And using the shift button to make capital letters seemed particularly onerous to him, for reasons that Hermione had yet to get to the bottom of.

Hermione shrugged. “I suppose you’d just get used to it when you were young, if you were German, You wouldn’t know any different.”

“Aren’t nouns the naming words?” Harry asked. At least he had been to muggle primary school; the Dursleys had not been able to keep him from that experience.

“Yes,” Hermione replied. “They fall into a few different categories, but there’s only two that we need to think about when we look at the difference between writing in German and writing in English.”

“Oh yes?” asked Fred, nuzzling small kisses into her neck and causing Ron to make vomiting faces behind their backs at Harry, who laughed. That caused Fred to flick his wand, without even breaking the kiss. A single jelly worm emerged from Ron’s mouth, reminiscent of the time that his own backfired spell had caused him to vomit slugs at school. “Next time it won’t be fruit-flavoured,” Fred warned his brother. “Please continue, love,” he said to Hermione.

“Of course Flower already knows that the important difference between German and English is that we only capitalise proper nouns, like people’s names, or the names of counties or countries. Not that it’s always easy to tell which is which,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m always apologising for the trickiness of the English language, and how it’s not always logical.”

“How so?” George, she had come to realise, had such a thirst for knowledge that he was often the most interested in learning obscure muggle things that he might never have cause to use himself. She imagined that he had got that from Arthur, and was happier than ever to indulge him in it, given the latest developments in her romantic life and knowing how important it was to Fred that she and George were close. 

Hermione wriggled a bit, getting more comfortable in Fred’s lap. “We capitalise the days of the week and the months of the year because they are proper nouns, but not the seasons, because they are common nouns,” she explained. “But many people often get that wrong, including me,” she confessed.

“And Flower is stuck on which nouns are proper?” Harry asked. 

“Ninety-nine per cent of the time, no. Her English is incredible. Occasionally she checks with me,” Hermione said. “Mostly about words which are unique to our world. Like ‘patronus’, ‘animagus’, ‘firewhisky’, that sort of thing. But there are other places to check, of course, and that’s what has caused my current question…” She trailed off.

“Go on then,” George asked, eager to get to the bottom of the problem. He was getting into this now and he liked having a good problem to solve. 

“Last week,” Hermione continued, “Flower asked me about capitalising dragon names. And I told her what I thought was right. Here we go,” she read down the sheet of paper that she was holding in her hand. “I said, ‘Animals don't need capital letters in English, except for when part of the name is a country and thus a proper noun. So, for example, you would write Chinese fireball, Romanian dragon, Welsh green and yellow doxy.’ The places that are proper nouns get capitals but the other words don’t.” She showed them the paper so they could read where she had added capitals.

“And do you think that’s incorrect?” Harry asked. He had no clue which was right, and neither did he really care. But he knew Hermione did, and he cared about her, so he figured he could do this for a bit longer before he and Ron went out flying.

“That’s the weird thing,” Hermione said. “Just before I sent her that, I went to double check with some muggle grammar resources. I thought, maybe there’s a special case for animal breeds. Not that I could look up dragons, of course,” she laughed, “but I could check dog breeds and so on. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t telling her something incorrect.”

“And?” Fred asked.

“According to the grammar resources that I use, that was right,” she shrugged. “But then I got another PM from Flower and she asked me, ‘why do they write the names of dragons with capital letters (on Pottermore for example) if that is incorrect?’ And that’s where I’m stuck…”

Hermione looked around at the others. “I mean, we know Pottermore doesn’t get everything right. Clearly someone forgot to tell them that, in reality, Fred is here and well and happy,” she said, squeezing her arm around Fred’s shoulder and causing the tall redheaded man to hold her closer.

“Dunno why they tried to make out I was lost to the war,” he muttered, “when clearly I’m fine! Bloody writers, going for sensationalism over reality!”

“Hmmm, well that will just have to remain a mystery,” Hermione said, “though I happen to know that Moonfairy is thinking of writing something about how you were saved one day, when her long series is finished,” she told Fred. “Today, though, I’m focused on the dragon nouns question.” Hermione gave a half-smile, knowing full well that most of those in the room weren’t really interested in this and probably wanted to leave for the broom shed and mess about on the quidditch pitch. Charlie hadn’t even spoken for the whole conversation, although that was about to change.

“Isn’t that one obvious, Hermione?” he asked, causing her to shift around in Fred’s arms so she could look at him properly.

“I suppose not, Charlie,” she smiled, “else I would have figured it out by now.”

Charlie leaned towards her, as if he was about to speak in a quieter voice, but actually did the opposite, making Hermione jump.

“It’s because they’re bloody DRAGONS, Hermione! Of course they should have capitals! Never mind the grammar rules! Every bit of their name should have capitals. Crikey, every letter should be a capital if they want!”

“Maybe we should give them a bigger font too?” added George helpfully, proud to show Hermione that he had been paying attention to her lessons.

“Yes!” agreed Charlie. “I don’t know what that is, but yes. They should have full respect and lots of capitals and fonts and trumpets. They. Are. Bloody. Dragons.” He sat back in his chair, having made his case.

“Right,” said Hermione. “Thank you for that, I think that clears it up nicely. I will go back and PM Flower and let her know what you said.”

“You can also tell Flower,” said Charlie, “that if Lauren wasn’t already in my life, I’d be learning to do this PM thing and asking her out on a date myself.” His voice became quieter. “Not often you find a woman who truly respects dragonkind.”

“Probably just as well,” said Fred, nodding his head to a picture of Bill and Fleur’s wedding and winking at Hermione. “Can’t have two foreign Flowers in the family; it’d only get confusing. Now, why don’t you go and tell your friend what Charlie said, and then we’ll discuss how we’re going to spend our weekend together…”

**Author's Note:**

> If this has made you happy in any way, please leave comment and make my day in return. Even a word or two makes a difference :-)
> 
> You can post in any language you like; I have translation help at hand ;-)


End file.
